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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29104605">Insanity</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mierke/pseuds/Mierke'>Mierke</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Gilmore Girls</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Post-Series, inspired by some parts of year in the life</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 14:00:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,790</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29104605</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mierke/pseuds/Mierke</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Rory's struggling to keep herself together after she gets fired when Logan shows up.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rory Gilmore/Logan Huntzberger</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Insanity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the prompt <i>Promise</i> for the <a href="https://100fandoms.dreamwidth.org/">100 Fandom challenge</a>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <i>For sale: baby shoes, never worn.</i>
</p>
<p>Rory stared at the plaque in front of her as she tried to write. Oh, how she hated that thing. It had been a present from a colleague, when she'd been laid off six months ago due to down-sizing. "To always remind you of the power of words," Laurie had said, and she'd been so sincere, she'd meant so well, that Rory had been unable to refuse the gift, and had been unable to toss it away ever since. </p>
<p>That's why it was taunting her still. She'd been so full of hope when she had lost her job; she'd started showing her work around almost immediately, certain she'd get another job quickly. After all, with her credentials, who wouldn't want her? Turned out, a lot of people didn't want her. She'd managed to scrape some freelance work together, but no steady collaboration. No one seemed all that interested in what she had to offer.</p>
<p>To pass the time and to at least keep writing, she'd started a book blog, reviewing random books she'd buy or ARCs she could get her hands on. She'd managed to amass a small following, but the book blog world was big, and climbing to the top would take a while. And she still had time to fill.</p>
<p>Writing a book had been her mother's idea. That's what Rory was working on now, her cursor blinking at her as her eyes kept being drawn to that stupid six-word story. She was just working up the nerve to throw it in the bin - as she'd tried to many times before - when the doorbell rang.</p>
<p>For a second, she considered not opening. She wasn't expecting anyone, and the chances of there being something interesting on the other side of that door were slim to none. Probably Jehovah's Witnesses, or someone wanting her money. But curiosity got the better of her, as it always did, and she opened the door anyway to reveal-</p>
<p>"Hi, Ace."</p>
<p>Logan looked at her with an easy smile on his face, and Rory felt as if she'd been kicked in the stomach. She could only stare at him, for once in her life at a loss for words.</p>
<p>"Can I come in?"</p>
<p>Rory wordlessly stepped aside and let him in, still trying to figure out whether he was really here or just a very realistic figment of her imagination. Maybe all that staring at those stupid six words had finally done her in. </p>
<p>"Why are you here?" she managed as she closed the door behind her, getting irrationally annoyed as he looked through her living room. He had no right to barge into her life, barge into her house, and find her wanting.</p>
<p>"I've come to invite you to my wedding."</p>
<p>Rory had thought she'd reached bottom when the door had opened to reveal Logan, but evidently she'd been wrong. She leaned against the wall, hoping it looked casual and not like the desperate attempt to stay upright it was. She'd heard about the engagement, of course. She knew she didn't have any reason to be mad; she'd been the one to turn him down in the first place, and it was obvious he'd wanted to get married. </p>
<p>"You could have just sent me an invitation." She was proud to hear none of the inner turmoil reflected in her voice.</p>
<p>"I could have," he agreed. "But then you'd have said no and I wouldn't have had a chance to see you."</p>
<p>"Logan." Rory sighed. She was tired, so damn tired and her heart ached. "Please leave."</p>
<p>He had the gall to look surprised at that, and Rory wondered whether he always had been so stupid and blind. "Rory, I-"</p>
<p>"Don't call me that!" She exploded, and the anger and frustration that had steadily been building inside of her over these past six months started bubbling over. "You don't just get to come here and rub your happiness in my face. You've moved on, I get it, fine, get married and be happy! Why do you have to drag me into this?!"</p>
<p>Logan took a step backward in her small apartment, as if the very force of her anger pushed him back. "Whoa," he said. "You were the one who said no, remember? Was I supposed to wallow for the rest of my life?"</p>
<p>"You weren't supposed to ask me in the first place!" They'd never actually had this conversation, pain and disappointment making any communication impossible just after the proposal, and later on Rory had decided to put it out of her mind. That hadn't worked out so well, though. </p>
<p>"I was twenty-three," she said. "I'd just gotten my degree and was getting ready to tackle the biggest opportunity of my life. How could you think that was the right time to propose?"</p>
<p>"I loved you," Logan said and he looked almost ashamed of his words. "I didn't think far past that."</p>
<p>"You should have known better." Rory felt tears gliding down her face and she resigned herself to just having all of her emotions on display for Logan. She sagged down against the wall and rested her head on her knees. "You wanted to turn me into a kept woman."</p>
<p>She could hear his gasp from the other side of the room and wasn't surprised when she heard his footsteps come closer, then felt him crouch down in front of her. He put an arm over her shoulder and though she tried not to, she really tried, she rested her head against him anyway.</p>
<p>"Never," he vowed, and it felt so sincere Rory had no choice but to believe him. "It wasn't about keeping you with me. It was about knowing that when you were out in the world, a piece of me would always travel with you. It was knowing that I'd never be completely alone because you'd be in my life. I didn't even need that wedding right away. I never meant to clip your wings."</p>
<p>"It doesn't matter anyway," she said, and then, for the first time in her life, she uttered the thought that had steadily been creeping up on her over the last couple of years: "I don't want to be a journalist."</p>
<p>If Logan was surprised by the apparent change of subject, he didn't let on.</p>
<p>"Okay," he said easily, as if Rory hadn't just given him the biggest confession of her life, as if this didn't turn her entire world topsy turvy and upside down. "What do you want to do?"</p>
<p>"I want to go back to Stars Hollow," she said, her dreams folding out in front of her now she'd opened the floodgates. "I want to open a bookstore. I want to have a book club, and maybe even do some sort of short story thing in mom's inn for the tourists. I want to continue building Rory's Rare Reads." </p>
<p>"And I want you," she said, unable to keep it in now she'd let all her other dreams tumbling out. She looked up to find Logan so close, his eyes so steady. "I want to take you back with me so you have a home after your workday. I want to go on crazy adventures with you. I want to build a family."</p>
<p>She closed her eyes, needing to look away from Logan's intense gaze. "I know I'm not allowed to want any of that," she said, a little ashamed of how much she had given away.  "I'm sorry. I'm just so tired."</p>
<p>"Ace," Logan said, and he sounded a little choked up, but Rory couldn't bear to look him in the eye right now, not when he was about to let her down easy. God, she should have kept her mouth shut, she should have never let him in in the first place, she should have-</p>
<p>"Ace," Logan repeated, a little more forcefully this time, and Rory realized he'd been saying something else she hadn't been able to hear.</p>
<p>"I'm listening," she mumbled, even though listening was the last thing she wanted to do. She knew she owed him that at least after throwing her emotions up all over him.</p>
<p>"You will always have me," he said. "I will always jump when you jump. My engagement is a business arrangement. Odette won't be hurt if I turn her away, she can find herself some other magnate, could probably even milk the whole thing to get some sympathy offers. Dad will be angry, but he'll get over it."</p>
<p>He sat down next to her, stretching his legs and letting out a sigh of relief.</p>
<p>"Not a day has gone by since my proposal that I haven't thought of you," he admitted. "I kept trying to figure out what I'd done wrong. It never occurred to me that you'd find marriage stifling. It should have, but it didn't. I was too wrapped up in how much it hurt that you'd said no to really think about why you'd done so."</p>
<p>For a moment, all Rory could hear was their intermingled breaths and it was the best sound she'd heard in months. </p>
<p>"I eventually decided if I'd messed up so badly with you," Logan continued. "I obviously wasn't that great at forging my own path. So I gave myself over to my father's wants and needs, followed his every whim, blazed through where he wanted me to go."</p>
<p>He straightened his back then, and Rory could almost feel his energy changing, could feel the enthusiasm she'd come to associate with Logan build up next to her and she couldn't control the answering flutters in her belly even if she had wanted to.</p>
<p>"Let us try again," he urged, taking her hands in his own, his eyes pleading. "We can figure things out together. You can figure out who you are without your journalist dreams and I can figure out who I am when I get to choose."</p>
<p>"This is insane," Rory said, torn between wanting to shout her yes to the heavens and hiding away. The last time she'd gotten tangled up with Logan her whole life had been torn to pieces and rebuilt. Her mother would be furious. </p>
<p>"I know," Logan agreed. "That's how you know it's right."</p>
<p>Rory shook her head, not saying no exactly, just needing some time and space to think. She scrambled to her feet and started pacing through her living room, not much more than three steps and back. Her eyes fell on the plaque she so hated, and with one more step she took it off the wall and threw it into her bin with all the force she could muster, the cling of it reverberating through her room. </p>
<p>"Let's do it," she said.</p>
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